The NL East-champion Nationals (98-64) came into Wednesday's regular-season
finale needing a win or a loss by the Reds to get home-field advantage
throughout the playoffs.

The Nationals will play Sunday at the winner of Friday's wild-card game
between Atlanta and St. Louis.

"It's quite an accomplishment [to have the best record]," Zimmerman said.
"Obviously, winning the division was a goal, and now we have done that. And
now we have a chance to go do some stuff in the playoffs. This is a great
season, a great team, a good group of guys. We have accomplished a lot that we
should be proud of, but we have a lot more to accomplish, hopefully."

Edwin Jackson (10-11) gave up one run on six hits over 6 2/3 innings for
Washington, which won the final two contests of this three-game series. The
right-hander struck out six and walked one.

Darin Ruf knocked in the lone run for the Phillies (81-81), who missed out on
the playoffs for the first time since 2006.

Philadelphia starter Cliff Lee (6-9) allowed three runs on eight hits while
striking out seven over six innings.

The Phillies were trying to finish with a record above .500 for a 10th
consecutive season.

"It didn't happen this year," Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins said. "It's
pretty obvious the reasons why, no excuses. Reasons that we weren't in the
race pretty much for a lot of the season. We gave ourselves a chance when we
got healthy."

Mark DeRosa of the Nationals was robbed of a homer in the first inning. Juan
Pierre made a nice leaping catch at the wall in left field to record the
second out.

Philadelphia's lone run of the game came in the fourth. Carlos Ruiz doubled to
right, moved to third on Domonic Brown's groundout and raced home on Ruf's
sacrifice fly.

But the Nationals responded with two runs in the bottom half. Zimmerman led
off with a homer to right. Morse followed with a double and scored on Moore's
double down the left-field line.

Moore's solo homer to left in the sixth made it a 3-1 game.

Washington tacked on two more runs in the eighth to put the game away.
Jonathan Papelbon walked Zimmerman before giving up a homer to Morse.

Game Notes

The Phillies and Nationals split the season series, 9-9 ... Lee fell to 5-3 in
eight career meetings with the Nats ... Jackson improved to 1-4 lifetime
against Philadelphia ... Tyson Brummett made his MLB debut in the eighth for
the Phillies ... Philadelphia announced after the game that first base coach
Sam Perlozzo, bench coach Pete Mackanin and hitting coach Greg Gross will not
have their contracts renewed for next season ... Nationals manager Davey
Johnson left Wednesday's game early because he felt numbness in his left leg,
which was later diagnosed as a nerve issue after he underwent a series of X-
rays. He expects to be at full strength for the playoffs.